


Tattoos of Memories

by deepandlovelydark, Tanista



Series: Domestic Adventures [28]
Category: MacGyver (TV 1985)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Adventures, Family, Gen, Surface Life, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-02-02 06:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12721386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanista/pseuds/Tanista
Summary: The life of an ingenious troubleshooter is not an easy one.Good thing he's got family and friends looking out for him.





	1. Los Angeles by gaslight

**Author's Note:**

> Tanista's note: In between writing about MacGyver's (and Becky's) adventures in the Neath, deepandlovelydark (my exceptional co-creator in That Deep Romantic Chasm) offers these delightful tidbits that can be set in either Deep Romantic (as their life pre-Neath) or my own AU, Domestic Adventures.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc's taunting has MacGyver almost at his wits' end. 
> 
> Becky helps put things in perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An AU twist on "Obsession" in Season 7. It'll probably make more sense if you've seen the original.

A rustle at the door. Encroaching footsteps. The smiling face of a carefree assassin.

An axe, a swing-

MacGyver tumbles off the sofa, biting his tongue to keep himself silent. Must not scream. Must not.

If he does, Becky will come running in, full of sympathy. She'll want to help, same as always.

And there's nothing for her to help with, no concrete evidence that Murdoc's back and plotting mischief. Nothing besides the assassin's track record, and a gut feeling that he wouldn't be having this many nightmares if there wasn't something amiss in the wind.

But if Murdoc is alive, there's no reason to inflict that information on his niece. Then it'll just be two of them having nightmares, instead of one.

And if he isn't, well…then he's just having a breakdown. Which is an occupational hazard in his line of business. Becky might as well be spared that knowledge for as long as possible.

Lying on the floor, MacGyver looks up at the ceiling and wonders what more it'll take before he finally cracks.

*********************

"Tell me the truth, Pete. What's the report say?"

Pete Thornton smiles wearily at the brash young college student sitting in front of him, full of vim and fire. "Becky, medical records are confidential information. And a Phoenix assessment even more so."

"So? C'mon, I'm his family. It'll help me look after him if I know the truth- look, at least tell me whether the board's thinking about suspending him or not. Because if that's what this is building up to, some notice would be good. It's only one more week before my autumn enrollment deadline, I'd like to know whether I'll be taking another semester of classes or dragging my uncle along on a cross-country roadtrip until he cheers up."

Pete sighs. "It's been mentioned."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Becky, you have to admit, ever since the mineshaft incident Mac's been- less sure of himself. There's a question whether he's yet recovered from the trauma that caused that last bout of amnesia."

"I have every faith in him," she says, eyes blazing.

"Of course you do, and for that matter so do I. But the point at issue right now is, does the board? And right now, well…Has he told you his current assignment?"

"Yeah. Security for the Delasora trial. Seems a bit mercenary for you guys, doesn't it?"

"The military-industrial relationship works both ways. If we're to keep getting plum assignments, sometimes we have to take on the jobs we're not that happy with…and for that matter, I didn't have a say on this one. You know that technically I've been bumped upstairs, and that Cindy's our new operations director? It was her say-so whether to take it, and she did."

"Sure. Mac doesn't like her."

"He said that?"

"Course not," Becky says, with a bit of a smile. "He's just a lot more terse talking about people he doesn't like. She's merited all of, oh, three sentences so far."

"Right. Well, I'll tell you this about her; she was fighting for my job for a long time, fighting so hard I'm not sure she knows where to stop. And it's no secret that Mac and I have made an inseparable team since our DXS days, him on the outside and me in here. I think she'd like to clear away the brush, start fresh by running her own trusted agents. I'd want the same in her position."

"How dare she? After everything you and Mac have done for the Foundation!"

"Let's put it this way," Pete says wryly. "We'll try bringing her around to our way of thinking. But if I can't stop her doing any serious damage- if I can't keep a bout of office politics off your uncle's back while he gets on with doing his job, well, then I'll know it really is time to throw in the towel. But believe me, Becky, I'm not going down without a fight. And I know MacGyver won't, either."

"Good for you. Thank you."

It's only once she's gone home, reassured by Pete's promises, that Becky realises how adroitly he'd steered the conversation away from what she actually came to ask about- what, precisely, has her uncle so bothered that the board wants to suspend him for it?

What a wily old manipulator Pete is.

*********************

"Don't tell me," MacGyver says. "Did I make the news?"

(He'd deliberately lingered on his way home, so as not to have to get this question answered in person. Hearing about it second-hand will be bad enough.)

"Yeah," Becky says quietly. "Third story in. One of the cameramen caught the whole thing on tape, they edited it so it looked like you were about to punch the guy."

"Aw jeez, of course they'd cut it there. Cindy's gonna want my head in the morning. And Pete'll probably have to give it to her, too. I might have to go freelance for a little bit until we get this mess settled."

"Something else on the news, too. The sound quality was pretty dismal, but I could make out what you were shouting, if nobody else could- Unc, when were you gonna tell me that Murdoc's still alive?"

"I- Becky, I don't know he's alive. I hope like anything he isn't, point of fact."

"But you think he's alive."

"…yeah. No, I didn't want to tell you. You've been through enough trauma because of Murdoc over the years, why would I make you relive that again if I wasn't absolutely sure?"

"Because I ought to know! Because-"

The phone rings.

MacGyver stares at it, doesn't move, as though the instrument's put him under a terrified trance.

Becky grabs it. Listens.

"Starting to see ghosts?"

"Wrong party," she says, in her sweetest, most feminine tones. "This is Becky Grahme-".

The crash of someone slamming down a receiver, very hard. How rude. But also quite telling.

"You weren't dreaming," she tells Mac. "That was definitely Murdoc. He's been gaslighting you, hasn't he? Trying to make you second-guess whether you were hearing him or just going crazy?"

"Yeah. Sounds about right." Her uncle looks almost relieved. "You heard him too?"

"Sure did. What happens now, do we go chase after him or something?"

"Nah. You know Murdoc, he always needs to make it more amusing for himself by playing six-dimensional chess. Now he'll spend the whole evening trying to compensate for that slip-up by working out something even nastier, so that means Delasora will be safe in the meantime- Becky, if you don't mind I think maybe you'd better stay away from the house for a few days. Sleep in the Phoenix Foundation, where we know you'll be really safe."

"No, I think ‘somewhere close to you' is always the safest place. Besides, if Cindy's about to fire you from the Foundation, they're hardly going to let me in the building afterwards."

"But- okay, I get the point. Becky, I'm sorry. You're taking all this a lot more calmly than I thought you might."

"Well," Becky says, with a slightly wry smile, "what, was I supposed to believe he was dead? C'mon. I wasn't born yesterday."

That gets a laugh. Good.

Looked like he needed one.

*********************

"And then I said, ‘good management decision, Pete,' and I glare at him, and he glares at me, and Cindy's standing by pretending she's not having the time of her life."

"Wish I could have seen this," Becky says, laughing. "Did you take all your SAKs with you?"

"Every last one! Stomping around asking for them back, I'd honestly forgot how many I'd loaned out to people- Cindy's more convinced than ever that I'm nuts. Just as well, because somebody has to be the insider here- look, Pete and I were talking this over, and we're trying to figure out the _cui bono._ You know, Latin, who benefits? Basically, who benefits by making me look crazy?"

"Murdoc," Becky says, after a moment. "D'you want to take over mixing? My arms are getting tired."

MacGyver takes the bowl, starts pounding the mashed potatoes with energy. "No problem. What's this to go with?"

"I figured a shepherd's pie. They have this new mushroom beef-substitute at the supermarket, so while you're doing that, I'll start browning it."

"Sounds nice."

"That's what I thought. Pizza might be one of the college student's food groups, but I don't wanna be eating it every night. And you sure shouldn't be ordering it all the time, even if it is with my favourite toppings."

"Sorry," MacGyver says, guilt in his voice. "I know I haven't felt like cooking much lately, not since…"

"Not since the mineshaft incident," Becky concludes. "Unc, what was it about that time? You've squared off with Murdoc often enough."

"Yeah, but that time he won, even if it was only temporary. He took all my memories, everything I am. He took you."

"But you have me back now," she argues. She shatters the chunks of frozen mushroom into fragments with unexpected ferocity.

"I know. But- Becky, for a few hours I was more alone than I've ever been in my life, and I hated it so much! I didn't know what to do with myself, I couldn't think, I wouldn't have been able to stand it much longer, if I hadn't suddenly got my memory back. And every time I have to think to myself, what if tonight's the night, what if this is the day when Murdoc takes you away again- you have no idea how afraid I am of that."

He plants the bowl squarely on the table, runs a distracted hand through his hair. "You know I've been easing off the stupider banana republic assignments since you came into my life full-time. Less Foreignavia scheming, more Challenger Club volunteering. But Murdoc and I have too much history now. I could go and- and live behind a white picket fence in Minnesota, work as the world's most boring grocery bagger and the day still might come when he'd catch up with us."

"Which is a very good reason for you not to do anything that dumb," Becky observes. "Unc, you would hate living a fake life like that just to try to look after me, and so would I, and as you say, it wouldn't make any difference."

"But knowing that doesn't make me feel any better. We're family, I ought to be able to keep you safe."

"You can't guarantee that. I might walk outside and get hit by a bus any day."

"Well, no. But I couldn't help a bus. But Murdoc-"

"But Murdoc nothing," Becky says, sprinkling garlic salt over the pan. "You do your best to catch him, every time. That he's still out there is not your fault. Nor would it be if he did kill me."

"He's a perpetual reminder that I'm not trying hard enough."

"I bet he says the same thing about you," she murmurs. "Look, it was always too late. Murdoc was after you long before I moved in, wasn't he? Nothing you can do about that. Of course he'll try to use me as leverage again, just because I exist and I'm here, but you've done your best with that too. Made sure I've had self-defense lessons, showed me your tradecraft, taught me how to think my way out of any situation."

"But it isn't fair to you."

"Of course it's not fair. But I could have been- I dunno, kicking around the foster care system, or stuck with some nice old widow in Oregon with six cats who wouldn't let me do anything fun. Instead I got an exciting adolescence, adventure and the promise that things will never, ever be boring around here."

MacGyver groans. "You're saying that my addiction to trouble-seeking has rubbed off on you. That at bottom, you're just as happy about being perpetually chased and hunted and frantic as I am, and that having an assassin perpetually on your tail just adds a little zest to life. Instead of a more appropriate reaction, like pure blind terror."

"Pretty much."

"What made me think- what made me ever think, that I would make an acceptable _in loco parentis_?"

Becky pops the pie into the oven. "Because you love me and wanted to take care of me. Though maybe you have the _loco_ part right after all; it's also Spanish for crazy." She winks. "Besides, I'm a grown woman so it's too late now for regrets."

"I guess." He manages a weak smile.

"Now to back to what we were talking about a century or so ago, what about Murdoc's plan?"

"Oh, that! Well, once I got my head straight again and started actually thinking, it was obvious. Murdoc could have just shot Delasora already if he wanted to, so whatever his plan is involves discrediting me- which admittedly he's done- and by proxy, discrediting the Phoenix Foundation."

"So?"

"So now Delasora is being kept secure by an anonymous squad on an reactivated Army base. Which, funnily enough, happens to be the same base that contains a couple of ‘60s missiles capable of reaching El Santori, so the two of us think we're looking at a new takeover bid. There was a nice long paper trail for Pete to follow, once we'd got that far. Here's the thing though, Murdoc's hardly a people person. He might have been able to think up the plan, but somebody else has to be implementing it for him. So we have a mole, and for my money it's either Cindy or Bob Stryke. He's an old military hand, it's just possible he'd know about the base, and of course Cindy has access to all kinds of confidential information now."

"I hope someone's keeping an eye on them."

"Of course. Nikki's been following Cindy around like a hawk, and Jack Dalton's having fun pretending to be a cab driver again by chasing Stryke around LA like a maniac. It helps to have friends."

"I'm surprised you're not out with them."

"They wouldn't let me," MacGyver confesses. "Both of them said I should come home and let you look after me already. Guess you weren't the only one who was worrying."

"Silly old uncle. They were right, you know."

"I'm lucky to have you. Not just you, even, everyone in my life. What would I ever do without my friends to get me out of jams?"

"Be an awful lot lonelier," Becky says, and shivers.

*********************

"So how'd it go?" Becky says eagerly on the phone next day.

"It was a bust," MacGyver says, sounding immensely bored. "Delasora's still under lock and key, since we had Jack's warning to say when the Phoenix Foundation team should move in. Of course, explaining what armed private security forces were doing on government property will be fun to explain- but Pete's leaving that job to Cindy. Who apologised to me, by the way. I didn't even get to do anything fun! No tricks with duck tape, or throwing my shoes at anything, or liquid nitrogen-"

"But what about Murdoc?"

"They found him strutting around in a uniform somewhere. Apparently Delasora had offered to make him a general if the coup came off. Pete asked me whether I wanted to see him in prison for myself- but you know what, I told him no. You're right. I can't spend my whole life worrying about one second-rate assassin."

"I bet he's out of there in two days."

"I bet you're right. No, three days. Just to throw me off-balance, you know?"

"Unc, you aren't going to let him do that to you, are you?"

"Of course not," MacGyver says, his voice warm and steady. "Want to put something on for dinner? I'll be home in an hour and a half or so."

"How does nut loaf sound?"

"Wonderful. Gotta run, Becky, but I'll see you soon." He hangs up.

Becky puts back the receiver in much relief. It's all worked out. Her uncle's fine. And she's fine. Which is more of a relief than she's ever going to mention.

The phone rings again. She picks up, wondering what Mac's forgotten to tell her.

"MacGyver…I'm going to make you sorry you ever killed me."

"Well, well. Guess I won my bet," Becky says, tracing a thin white scar encircling her left wrist. A memory of chains, one time when Murdoc had her trapped as a helpless captive, just to use against her uncle. He'll never do that to her again, she'll make sure of it. "He thought you'd take longer than this to call. You know what I do to him, whenever he loses a bet?"

The assassin's curiosity overrides his reluctance. "What?"

"Nothing! Don't need to, because I already know he's there for me. See, I don't need to win, or play games, or try to murder him just to get his attention, unlike some creeps-" Becky snaps, with a little more vitriol in her tone than she'd ever realised herself capable of.

But dammit, Mac's her uncle; she's not sharing him with this fantasy psychotic.

Murdoc hangs up in a huff. Good. That's him out of their hair for the evening.

Maybe the assassin's obsessed. Obsessed with ripping away and tearing apart, taking fire at serene familiar relationships that he's only ever witnessed from the outside. Obsessed with lonely hatred.

But she and her uncle aren't. They've got better things to do.

Becky starts humming a cheerful tune, and goes off to look for a measuring cup.


	2. well done, with ketchup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a new!MacGyver fic by TheGirlWhoRemembers, "Irreconcilable Differences", about Mac's ability to cook a steak (or lack therein). http://archiveofourown.org/works/12689631
> 
> Once I'd seen that, I couldn't resist doing an old-skool version (sometime when Nikki's new to the Foundation). Well, an old-skool version with Becky in the mix.

"Mac, old buddy, you know we all love you anyway," Jack Dalton implores. "So for god's sake, will you just let me do the steaks this time?'

"No. And you know why? I'm gonna get it right. Just you watch," Mac says, throwing the lighter fluid on with considerably more zeal than caution. 

"Uh-huh. I've been hearing that since high school..."

"I thought your uncle was a vegetarian," Nikki says to Becky.

"Days like these I wish he was," Becky says, cutting up her chocolate cake into neat slices. "At least I talked him into wearing safety goggles this time. And a hair net."

"Isn't that a trifle excessive?"

_Foom._

The fireball coming off the grill shoots up all of fifteen feet, leaving behind five carbonised relics and one rather disconsolate troubleshooter.

"No," Becky says, after a pause. 

"I see we got started early this time," Pete says, puffing a little as he comes up with several plastic bags. "Anybody want to help me with these? Now this one's got the crispy duck, that one has all the fried rice..."

"Every year," Jack mutters. "Every year, he lays out the money for all those beautiful porterhouses, and every year we wind up having Chinese food instead- honestly, Mac, it makes my heart bleed thinking of all those cows who've died in vain."

"I think it's good for him," Pete says to Nikki confidentially. "Having something in his life that he can afford to be a real spectacular failure at. The man's got a lot of weight on his shoulders, and now a niece....we all have to unwind somehow."

"I suppose that makes sense," Nikki says thoughtfully. "But I'll admit to being disappointed. See, I was promised steaks."

"Ah. Well, that's the one thing you can't expect at MacGyver's cookouts."

"That's what you think," MacGyver says. "See, I thought ahead this year! This time I got twice as much, so I could try again!"

Utterly undaunted, he advances on the grill with happy manical intensity.

Jack just moans.


	3. Brainwashed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Becky-inclusive rewrite of "Brainwashed". 
> 
> It's fun redoing these episodes, with more women and (somewhat) smarter tradecraft...

“I’ve missed this,” Becky says cheerfully, splashing her way through the wet. “Rain! Real rain! LA could do with a bit more of it, if you ask me.”

“But then nobody would appreciate it as much,” Jack says solemnly. “Except for those of us-“ SPLASH- “who are constitutionally required to stomp through any puddles we see, of course.”

“Like so?” SPLASH. 

“Exactly!”

MacGyver (lagging well behind the soggy pair) stops and studiously adjusts his windbreaker, hiding his amusement. It’s nice seeing two of his favourite people getting on so well. 

Especially with Jack so uncharacteristically nervous, as of late…

“And here she is! My proud new acquisition. Almost ready to set sail, once the paint’s done and the new lighting system’s installed.”

“Jack, you bought a houseboat. Those don’t go anywhere.”

“Why can’t I put a sail on it, if I want to? You watch..hi there, Clarence! Clarence is my new neighbour,” he adds to Becky. “Expert in all things Aquarius.”

The fisherman waves back, not letting the interruption stem his flow of conversation. “…from the bottom of my heart. So I told him, go stick your head in a bucket! Why he thinks he can tell me about fishing, when he doesn’t know a leader from a sinker- hey, what are you doing with my bucket?” he asks, attempting to pry the object from Jack’s hands. 

Jack successfully wrests it away, and upends the rain-filled bucket over his own head. 

Upon the completion of this feat, there is a long and thoughtful silence.

“Son, what d’you think you’re doing?” 

“Oh, I dunno. Figured I couldn’t be any wetter than I already was, right?” Jack says, in a rather pale attempt at his usual banter. 

“Makes perfect sense to me,” Becky says, laughing. 

Her youthful enthusiasm smoothes over the moment; everyone has a good laugh and carries on with their day. 

Except MacGyver, who’d caught a glimpse of Jack’s expression as the bucket went over. Not amusement, or teasing, but a blank indifference that didn’t belong on his friend’s lively features at all. 

Even for Jack Dalton’s brand of patented shtick, this is more than a little odd. 

_****************_

“Mac, that was exactly what I was talking about! Sleepwalking, buckets…I don’t mind telling you, I think I’m really losing my mind! What happens if I wander outside again, like I did to that theme park last night?”

"Sleep in your shoes?" 

"In case you hadn't noticed, this house is a boat! I could wake up at the bottom of the ocean!"

Jack’s tone is dramatic, and his gestures even more so. As if he’s trying to hold it off (whatever “it” may be) with the same weapons he uses on everything else: distraction, flair, and unflagging gusto. 

_Occupational hazard, in our profession._

Half of him thinks that it’s nothing, and Jack just can’t help himself exaggerating. Nothing more than the blowback from a particularly extravagant bender. 

Still…these days he’s a lot more careful than he used to be, more thoughtful about the risks he runs. Raising Becky’s brought out a protective instinct he didn’t know he had. 

“Sleep in a life jacket? ...yeah, okay. Why don’t you stay on with us in the apartment for a few days? You can have the loft bedroom, I’ll sleep on the couch. That way if it happens again, I’ll be around to see what’s going on.” 

“You ought to just put the couch in your bedroom already, instead of making excuses all the time,” Jack says, with a momentary grin. “Sure you want to risk it, though? Supposing I go wild and your ole’ buddy goes after you with the meat axe? Or worse, Becky?”

“Jack, I know you better than that. You’d never hurt either of us. If you don’t trust yourself on that, trust me,” MacGyver tells him, soft but sure. 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jack says, almost without flippancy. Almost. 

“You might talk one of us into a ridiculous gold-hunting goose chase, or try to teach my niece card-cutting, or swipe all the cash from our ice cream fund, but you wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Cards are an important part of a young person’s education,” Jack says. “Besides- try? Try? You wound me sometimes, you really do.”

He looks more than a little hurt. 

_****************_

“Ms Carpenter? A word in your ear,” Helen says. “In private, please.”

“What is it?” Nikki’s always been rather fond of the dear old thing, with facts innumerable at her fingertips and a glint in her eye that promises she knows more than she’s telling. 

“You know, I’ve known Pete Thornton rather a long time? Very well indeed. And there is this one fact about which I am absolutely, positively certain. The man simply can’t stand fishing.”

Of course, the dear old thing is maybe getting a little doddery. “Really? He’s been going around all week, telling everyone about how much fun he had catching six-pound salmon.”

“Quite the point, my dear. Of course he knows about it- nobody could be as much of a friend of MacGyver as he is, without picking up a little information on the subject- but it simply isn’t his sort of sport. And when I hear that an intelligence agent has suddenly undergone a dramatic change in personality, why, I begin to worry about them just on general principles. Won’t you go and have a look?”

“How so? The usual?”

“Check up on his story. Go to this salmon spot and interview the locals. Ferret out the discrepancy. You’ll find one.”

“And you’re sure this is something you want me to do? Not MacGyver?”

Helen laughs: there's unexpected richness, in her aged voice. “Ask MacGyver to check up on Thornton? Phoenix’s golden boy is all well and good, but he'd be worse than useless on a job like that. Each to their appointed task. No, if anyone’s to do it I think you’d be the best candidate.”

Fair enough. “Well, it’s another week before the Budapest run…I suppose I can fit it in my schedule.”

“One more thing. Do be quick about it.”

“Any particular reason?”

Helen plucks a bit of fluff off her skirts and regards it contemplatively. “That, I must confess, is purely feminine intuition.”

_****************_

This is the life, Jack reflects, sipping at his nice cold beer. (Five more in the fridge, cunningly disguised as regular root beer. What Mac doesn’t know won’t hurt him.)

For as long as he’s known MacGyver, the man’s varied wildly between moods of messy clutter and laboratory-grade neatness. Having a niece around seems to have brought out a happy medium; the apartment looks a picture of weird domesticity. Chemistry journals overlapping with schoolbooks, a table centrepiece made from pink duck tape flowers. Homely, that’s for sure. 

He’d figured that Mac wouldn’t make it more than six months, looking after a kid. Or failing that, the troubleshooter would at least be begging Pete Thornton for every overseas missions Phoenix has in stock. A childhood spent bouncing around the foster care system in three different states has left him a little cynical about well-intentioned types who burn out quickly. Which does, after all, describe Mac’s usual _modus operandi_ to a T. 

But it's been a couple years now, and they do seem to have made it. Of course, not without a little help; Nikki Carpenter seems to have nothing better to do these days, than talk about what Becky’s been up to. Especially when he’s been asking her about intelligence stuff. Or Phoenix internals. Or pretty much any topic that’s at all sensitive, now he’s thinking about it…

“Cheeky Nikki,” he says out loud. “If I asked you out for a cup of coffee, will you go off at a tangent about what song Becky's been learning this week? I just bet you would-“

The door bangs open. Mac and Becky, which is predictable enough. 

What is not predictable is how much they’re quarreling. 

“Unc, come on! If you’re in this much trouble I want to help-“

“And the best way you can help is to let me know you’re safe,” Mac says. He’s breathing fast and deeply, as though he’s been running. “Jack, forget the award ceremony. Take Becky, get her out of the country, don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know.”

“Whoa, whoa! Mac, I am on vacation, remember? V-A-C- wait,” Jack says, seeing the look on his friend’s face. “How serious is this?” 

“As serious as I’ve ever been about anything,” Mac says, dropping a newspaper on the table in front of him. “This is what I found tonight at the rendezvous, instead of Nikki.”

Jack looks at it. Headline about President Abu Dakra’s visit, nothing unexpected there-

then he sees the faint three-petalled flower pencilled in the margin, and allows himself an over-the-top shudder. 

“Trinity, huh? In deference to the lady, I’ll hold off on the strong language.”

“You still haven’t told me,” Becky says quietly. “What Trinity actually is.”

MacGyver sighs, runs a frantic hand through his mullet. “Code 101. Phoenix has been compromised, we can’t trust anyone, and all hell’s about to break loose.” He yanks a drawer out of a desk, starts rummaging around in the back. “My priority has to be finding Nikki. The president will just have to give his medals to Pete or something, they’ll figure out the ceremony without us.”

“But compromised how?” Becky asks, curious as always. Like uncle, like niece. 

“No way to tell. Bribery, infiltration, who knows?” He slaps a wad of cash on the table. “My emergency fund, two thousand dollars. That oughta cover expenses.”

“That’s a lot of ice cream money,” Jack murmurs, without making a move to take it. 

“I need to know you two are all right, okay? I mean it, Becky. This is one time I don’t want any argument.”

Becky, looking not a little miserable, fetches a brown bottle from the fridge. Before Jack can stop her, she takes a long drink.

“Bleah! I think this went off.”

“Jack Dalton! Is that- did you-” 

“Yeah. Sorry. And I’m the person you want taking your niece out of the country?”

“…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes,” MacGyver says unhappily. “There just isn’t anyone else.”

“Are you sure?” Becky asks. “Unc, I know you’d never mistrust a friend, but- didn’t you say that Jack hasn’t been himself lately? What if it’s him?”

“You told your niece about me? Mac, that was private!”

His face burns. “I- yes. I mean, you did empty a bucket over your head, she wanted to know if you were okay.”

“…oh, yeah. Forgot about that. Hey! Maybe this is a really good thing!”

“How?” the other two ask in unison.

“Because if I’m the agent, and I don’t know I’m the agent, then they must be doing…I dunno, secret brainwashing shenanigans! You know. Like that Frank Sinatra movie.”

“Jack, that’s awfully far-fetched. And you’re not exactly a Foundation agent. Contractor at best.”

“But it explains things! And if we know I’m the leak, maybe we can come up with a plan to use me against them? Whoever they are.”

“Too bad we can’t ask the Phoenix psychologists,” MacGyver says thoughtfully. “Okay. Maybe I could get Pete to-“

“Can’t, Unc. Don’t trust anyone, you said.”

“Come off it, Becky. Nobody, but nobody, could buy Pete Thornton.”

“Would Nikki have used the code if she didn’t mean it?”

“No,” MacGyver mutters. “You’ll be telling me I shouldn’t trust you next.”

Becky doesn’t answer, just hugs him. Some of the tension goes out of Mac’s face, as he hugs her back. 

Domestic attachment is all very touching and all, but it won’t get them out of this jam, Jack thinks. Trinity, hell! No wonder Mac wants his niece somewhere safe. 

“What about that cop friend of yours? Lieutenant Murphy, doesn’t she owe you a favour after that Zito thing?”

“That’s true,” Becky says. “She says I had a standing invitation to come over for a sleepover, anytime I liked.”

“Now’s probably a good time to take her up on that,” Mac agrees. “Okay, that makes me feel a bit better…but Jack, what are we gonna do about you?”

Attachment. Huh. 

“Don’t worry about that. I have a great idea!”

_****************_

“This was the worst idea ever,” MacGyver says, as they walk down a long hallway. The handcuff has been cutting into his wrist something harsh; he never knows when Jack’s gonna stop or start suddenly. “Not only do you have to start sleep-walking at your age, but you have to drag me along too? Why can’t you wake up already?”

Jack doesn’t respond, naturally. Just keeps moving, trance-like. 

_Looks like the corridors at the banquet hall, a bit. Does this have something to do with the president's visit? But what?_

They enter a set of double doors, and now he’s no longer in any doubt- tables, name cards, a podium. All the same layout for the Kimbala banquet tomorrow night. 

And a tape player.

“Hang on, were you right all along?” MacGyver says, loudly. “Periodic reinforcement, or did you just remember you’d been here before…maybe over the course of a long weekend? What’s it all about?”

Jack stops by a table, pulls a gun out of a holster. Mac yanks it from his hand and replaces it, pulls him roughly forward to the tape player. Starts it playing. 

One phrase, over and over again. “From the bottom of my heart…from the bottom of my heart…”

Someone rises out of one of the chairs. 

“Nikki! How’d you get mixed up in this thing?”

“From the bottom of my heart,” Nikki says softly. “I salute you.”

She’s one of Phoenix’s best. MacGyver doesn’t even see her draw- there’s just a gun, and he veers off to spoil her aim. Not fast enough. A too-familiar blast, a burst of pain in his shoulder. 

Disorientated, he lurches back, knowing he won’t move quickly enough, knowing that she’ll hit this time- 

Jack shoves him behind the podium, with rude strength. Hastily unclips the handcuffs. 

“You were right. This was the worst plan.”

“No,” MacGyver says, a bit weakly. “We know it’s code-phrase hypnosis, we know it’s the Dakra banquet- now we just have to get out in one piece. Good thing you were awake this time.”

“Nikki, it’s us!” Jack shouts. “You don’t want to kill us!”

“From the bottom of my heart,” Nikki says, rounding the corner. 

No one’s there. Nothing. 

She doesn’t allow this to stymie her, cool and collected agent that she is. So they’ve gone through the back, into the mirror-maze. They won’t last long. 

Cool, collected agent. They’re nothing else to her.

Nothing but the job, and the orders. 

Nothing but the Great Game. 

“From the bottom of my heart,” she repeats. Her code phrase, her mantra. 

Here’s MacGyver, standing in front of her. Pale and wan with shock. 

“Go ahead, Nikki. Kill me.”

She shoots- and his image shatters, and she knows as it vanishes that she’s lost something fragile, unbearably precious, the last thread leading out of her cold disconnected world. 

_From the bottom of my heart…_

“You’ll have to do it again, Nikki. Kill me.”

She whirls round the corner, gun held high and ready. MacGyver’s facing her again. 

There’s a flower over his heart, traced in blood. 

_Don’t trust anyone._

“Not since I lost Adam,” Nikki says, and fires. Mac’s image breaks, once again. “Not again. Never again.”

There’s a job to be done here. She’s never left one unfinished. 

A cry of pain, a tell-tale thud. She smashes her way through the mirrors to the source of the disturbance, finds Jack and MacGyver huddled on the floor together. No mirror this time, she realises. It’s only the tears in her eyes that make them seem wavy, out of focus. 

The Game. Always the Game. 

The last killing, before her task ends and she walks into the night, perfect spy, cool collected Nikki Carpenter- 

“Nikki. Look after Becky.”

It’s not a request; it’s an order. 

Another thread, binding her over, pulling her back to life- why? Why does the world keep making these demands, why can’t it leave her be? 

“I don’t want to go back,” Nikki says, voice trembling but gun held straight. “It’s peaceful like this.”

“From the bottom of your heart?” Jack asks, mocking as ever. He pushes Mac up against a wall, stands up. “From the bottom of your heart, do you mean that?”

Liquid rolls across the floor, touches her shoes, staining them dark. The blood shines a little, in the half-light. 

Nikki looks down at Mac, clutching a ragged piece of shirt to his shoulder, and realises a very simple fact; this, in front of her, is a man dying. 

She’s done that to him. 

She wishes she hadn’t. 

“Oh my god, MacGyver,” she says, dropping to her knees, abandoning the gun. 

And then, because Nikki Carpenter is above all things a practical woman, she removes her jacket and starts tearing it into strips. Tricky things to bandage, these shoulder wounds. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You were under hypnosis. You couldn’t help yourself.”

It’s not that simple, she wants to tell him. They couldn’t have made her do anything she didn’t want to- they just made their wishes lie along the path of her desires. Her loneliness, consuming itself in justifications to avoid connection. 

But there’s no reason to explain. MacGyver is a kinder soul than the profession deserves; she doesn’t want to smear his innocence.

“Well, I sure am glad you stopped when you did,” Jack says, sitting back against the wall and breathing out a sigh of relief. “I’d have hated to have shot you, you know.”

“You couldn’t have done,” Nikki says dismissively, finishing off the last ties. 

“Against somebody who’d shot Mac? Don’t tell me what I would or wouldn’t do.”

He says it with a laugh, but the cool, collected part of Nikki’s mind makes a mental note. 

_If it’s ever necessary to kill MacGyver, Jack Dalton needs to go first._

“Eh. I knew it’d be all right,” MacGyver says, grinning despite everything. “Two friends of mine, what was going to go wrong? I mean, really?”

“You would say that.”

_****************_

“Did everyone end up hypnotised?” Becky says, in confusion. 

“Why are we telling a teenager about this?” Pete says, rather huffily. 

“Because as of today she’s no longer a mere teenager, but a Phoenix associate,” Helen says. “As a precaution, so that she can access our emergency protocols in case of another calamity like this. We should have done that for them years ago, really.”

“I see.”

“Pretty much everyone except me,” MacGyver says dryly. “Jack was the initial pick for the assassination, Pete was the backup-“

“You know, I think I still like fishing? At least that’ll be one sport we can agree on from here on out.”

“And they had to turn Nikki in a hurry, after she discovered Pete in the warehouse and worked out the whole plan. So no ill effects, besides another scar for me and a black mark on Pete’s record.”

“Still not good, though,” Becky murmurs. “I mean, you’re not getting any younger.”

“Ouch! Don’t write me off just yet.”

“I imagine that Nikki Carpenter will be taking some medical leave? She’ll be welcome to it, of course,” Pete says with considerable dignity as a troubleshooter chases his giggling niece round the office. 

“I was going to,” Nikki says, as she enters. “But then I thought, no, I’d prefer being around people for a while. Maybe ask for a few local assignments. All this time I’ve been in LA, yet I've never actually seen it?”

Mac catches up with Becky, tickles her. She shrieks playfully. 

“Sure, sure, that can be arranged. You know, I thought this was going to be an orderly wrap-up of the Dakra case,” Pete says in utter despair. “Not-”

The door bangs open, yet again. 

“Hel-lo everyone!” Jack booms. “I brought beer!”

“Both kinds,” he adds, after a moment of MacGyver staring at him. 

“I don’t know, it amuses me,” Helen says thoughtfully. “Besides, corralling this material into the stuff of a coherent report is far less punishment than you deserve, for getting shanghaied by a two-bit outfit who couldn’t even afford a decent assassin.”

Pete doesn’t even try to respond to that one. 

"...he asked you to take care of me? After you'd shot him?" Becky puckers her mouth. "Don't think I'd have appreciated that." 

"I knew what I was doing," Mac says calmly. "Nikki was trying to fight her conditioning- she left the newspaper for me to find, remember? Just had to remind her who her real friends were, that's all." 

"It worked," Nikki says, meeting his clear, guileless gaze. "You knew exactly what buttons to press, you wretched- spy."

"Of course I do. What else does Phoenix pay me for?"

"Oh? And here I was thinking, it was just that encyclopedia knowledge of SAKs they'd hired you for..."

"Well. That sure doesn’t hurt..."

"And two different versions of the President's speech, depending on which assassin they were going to activate," Pete says to Helen. "My trigger phrase was 'the respect and gratitude of our people...'" 

"Do a handstand," Helen says promptly. 

Pete looks alarmed, then- when nothing happens- relieved. "Nothing. Doctor Beatty knows her stuff, all right- MacGyver, what are you doing?"

"A handstand," the troubleshooter says, in a mock-robotic voice.

"Ooh," Becky says, with interest. "Go n' buy me an ice cream, Unc. No, seven of them."

"Not funny, Mac," Jack says, in anxious tones. 

"Aw, it's all right," MacGyver says, standing up again. "Didn't mean to worry you- seven ice creams, young lady? They'd melt before you finished them."

"Of course not. There's six of us here, right? Plus an extra one for me."

"Hey, if she's getting two, I want two," Jack says immediately. 

"I'm very particular about mine," Nikki insists. "Two scoops of chocolate with everything on it. And I mean everything. Sprinkles, hot fudge, whatever they have."

"I'm gonna need a list," MacGyver says, grabbing a report off Pete's desk and scrawling messily on the back. 

"When did I agree to host an ice cream party in my office?" 

"Classic vanilla for you, right Pete?"

“Let ‘em have it,” Helen says. “Consider it a morale-boosting exercise. Besides, it’s been too long since I’ve had a triple Rocky Road.”

Pete sighs. 

“Classic vanilla it is, MacGyver...”


	4. And Baby Makes Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a snippet, from the full rewrite I'll be doing for "Rock the Cradle".

"You're really getting into this, aren't you?" MacGyver observes, watching his friend jolly the baby along. 

"Well, for a guy who always considered himself terminally allergic to the idea of commitment...yeah, it's not bad." Jack catches Becky's eye, gives her an oddly vague smile. "How about you?"

"C'mon, you know me, Jack. It's been in the back of my head..."

Jack slips him a grin. Also the baby, which Mac handles with gentle, practiced tenderness. 

Brings out a sort of quiet in him, Becky thinks. That I never knew he had.

Despite his occasional laughing protestations of age, she's always clung to the idea of her stalwart and unchanging uncle. Just the same as the fresh young college student who told her bedtime stories - but that isn't quite right these days, is it? Not when he has her to look after. Not when Pete Thornton's been quietly easing his work load, giving him more LA assignments and Phoenix charity work to do instead of globetrotting and breaking bones every other week. Slowing down a bit, though nobody will ever say that aloud. 

He's just adapting, of course. As he does. 

"But I've kinda backed away from it. I mean, of course I took Becky, but there wasn't any second-guessing to do there. Never would have thought to recommend it for you, though...do you think that's what it takes to be happy?"

"That's a beautiful thought," Jack agrees. "Will you marry me?"

There are at least a hundred different ways Jack Dalton might have asked that question, and if pressed to guess Becky would have assumed a tone just short of completely bananas. Crazy Jack and his madcap jokery are a byword, after all. 

But that's not how he says it. Instead it's soft, and thoughtful, and about as serious as he's ever sounded. Perfectly straight. 

Becky watches her uncle with much interest as he comes to the same realisation, catching himself before a light-hearted retort. Opens his mouth to say something-

Which is precisely the moment when Kate charges in, all abuzz and eager for her baby, and everyone's attention is thoroughly distracted. And though it's wonderful to see her, of course- sheesh, couldn't she have waited just one more minute?


	5. it's the end of the world as we know it

Restless night, punctured by cold dreams and confused annoyance- why's the air conditioning up so high? Two quilts and a sheet are usually more than adequate, even for December in LA- but not today. 

"Becky? Wake up, there's something I think you'll wanna look at." The weight of a heavy jacket drops against her, warming her a bit; she murmurs incoherent appreciation. 

"Still sleepy,  Unc. It's Saturday, I don't wanna get up for ages."

"But I don't know that what I want you to see will still be there later," her uncle says, hand already on the doorknob. He grins at her, with the needlessly enthusiastic zest of somebody who doesn't even need coffee to wake up in the mornings. 

Groaning, she rises, wrapping herself in the familiar cowhide. Follows him to the living room, where he whips aside the curtains. 

"Pretty, isn't it?"

"...snow? Here in California?"

"Sure is. Hasn't happened since the '60s, but we do get the occasional freak storm. Probably won't even last until Christmas, but it'll be nice while it does, right?"

"Um, I guess." It's not like she hasn't seen snow, plenty of times before; and she can't help but worry about all the people who'll be affected by this in less-than-nice-ways- orange growers, homeless folk down on Skid Row, frightened motorists. Looking at the familiar expanse of city before them, now buried beneath a blanket of white, just seems plain unnatural to her. Wrong.

(If this was Oregon, now- but not LA! Snow in sunshine movieland, this is ridiculous.) 

"I could build a snowman. Don't think I've done that in years."

Then again, it's not like she can really do anything about it, and her unc's looking so happy. "Then I'll pitch in. Just in case you need some reminders."

"That's the spirit!"

"After hot chocolate. After all. If it's snowing it must be hot chocolate season too, right?"

"...I wonder if I can warm up that batch of frozen hot chocolate I whipped up the other day. Without making it taste terrible, I mean."

"If anybody can, you will."

He does.

****

Four snow angels, three impromptu snowball fights, two snow persons and a falling icicle later, the snow's coming down harder than ever, and the two of them retreat back inside. 

"Think I'll break out the Christmas yule logs. That all right by you, Becky?"

"Oh, please do." This is the one time of year their firewood supply is fully stocked, for which she's inordinately grateful. "You're right. It was more fun out there than I expected. Especially all those little kids who'd never seen it before."

"Thought you'd see it that way, once you warmed up a bit." He drops the wood in the fireplace just as the doorbell rings. "Bet that's Jack. Ready to tell us all kinds of tall tales about how he's heroically battled through the traffic to get here."

But it isn't; instead, Nikki Carpenter stands at the door, wet and rather woeful. "MacGyver. Hi. Ah- is it all right if I stay here a while?"

"Course you can. Long as you need to."

She runs a rueful hand through a shock of her dark hair, turned wildly unkempt. "The freeway's gone from being annoying to completely impossible, I was inching my way back home for four hours before bailing. And then, right as I was making the turn up your street, somebody spun out right in front of me...the entire front of my car now looks like the world's least playable accordion."

Becky can't help but stare at her a bit enviously. Woeful, maybe; but Nikki sure doesn't look like somebody who was just inches away from death. Suave to a t, so to speak. 

(Unc is smart and sweet and kind and all that, but he's sure never gonna be suave.)

"Sounds like even I might have trouble fixing that. Never mind. You can stay here until the cold snap's over, and I'll drive you to Phoenix. They'll dig up some transport for you."

"Thanks. You know I wouldn't impose like this normally."

"Uh-uh," Mac says, setting his chin stubbornly. "If there's snow, we're using Minnesota rules. Which means unquestioned hospitality."

"I once got punted off the fourth floor of an office building in Minneapolis. Counted myself lucky there was a snowstorm to break my fall at all."

"Well. Mission City rules, then- what on earth were you doing to get 'em so riled up?"

"Making a nuisance of myself, so the other agent wouldn't attract any attention. I'll give your lot this much credit, it took a full twenty minutes more pestering than I was expecting it to take." 

"Aw. And Pete didn't ask me along to see this?"

"MacGyver, the man knows his field agents. How much actual work would you have even have accomplished, out in the bush?"

"Nikki Carpenter! The Twin Cities are just as metropolitan as any coastal city. A prize agent like you oughta have noticed that much."

"Probably not a whole lot," Becky pipes up. "Especially if I'd been along, we've have been out on the lakes before nightfall."

"That's exactly what I thought," Nikki says, smiling thinly. Consummate professional, as ever. 

***

Halfway through a Mission: Impossible rerun, the doorbell goes again. 

"That's gotta be Jack," MacGyver says, though he shows no hurry to get up; he's resting against the couch, with Nikki absently running her hands through his hair. Becky figures the picture only needs a couple of wedding rings to be just perfect. 

"I'll get it," she says quickly. 

"See, Nikki? The advantages of having a niece are inestimable. They'll open doors for you, bake surprise cookies, ferry paperwork down to Pete's office..."

"Hmm. Any chance you'll lend her out by the hour?"

"As though it's my decision. They're more like brownies, they just sorta pop up when you're not expecting... "

Becky snorts, and opens the door. 

"Oh, Penny! What brings you here?"

"It's snowing outside," Penny says breathlessly, as though this is the most amazing news she's ever heard. "And I thought it would be such a shame if you two hadn't heard yet. Considering how much he loves snow."

"Thanks for the thought," Becky says, hanging up a furry striped wrap (hopefully synthetic, or things could get messy). "We went out earlier, actually, but it's nice you thought of us."

"But you'll stick around for some hot chocolate," Mac says firmly. "Or- wait, what's the latest? Boiled hemp? I missed the last newsletter."

"The latest issue says it's almond milk now. But never mind that, it's not every day that we get snow. And Becky says your hot chocolate's really good."

"You read the same magazines that she does?" Nikki asks, highly amused. 

"I keep up on a lot of odd publications, it's part of the job," Mac answers; though he can't quite meet her gaze. Possibly because he'd start giggling if he did, Becky figures. 

"Here you go," she says, fetching a cup from the urn. 

"Ooh! Lovely. And not too sugary, either."

"Unc says that's what's wrong with the commercial ones. Too much corn syrup, not enough chocolate..."

"Question," Nikki calls. "How were you planning to get home again- and for that matter, how'd you get here? They closed the roads an hour ago."

"They did? That must be why I had such an easy time getting here. Nobody else was on the roads, except a few police cars- o-h-h-h," Penny says. "I guess that's why they kept flashing their lights at me. Oops."

"We haven't had the news on all day, how'd you know?" MacGyver asks. 

"Message on my pager," Nikki says, waggling it in front of his nose. He makes a mock and entirely futile grab for it. 

"One of these days, Nikki. One of these days, Pete's gotta let me have one."

"Not until IT's convinced they've built one you can't hack. Security, you know."

"...I'm never getting one, am I?"

"Allows us poor unfortunate mortals the advantage of some toys to ourselves," Nikki teases. Mac grabs for the pager again; she tosses it to Penny. Becky yelps in alarm. 

Penny catches it, and stares at the little bundle of electronics as though it's fallen from heaven. "My goodness! I don't think I've caught anything since fourth grade. Or third, maybe."

"And they think I'd put a pager in peril. All I'd wanna do is slide the casing off, maybe have a poke around or two to see what's what..."

*** 

The afternoon carries on, in peace and comfort. Becky finds herself napping through a lot of it, catching bits of domesticity here and there; Penny helping to fix Nikki's hair, Nikki attempting homemade chili for what she says is the first time in years ("So Dalton left this hot sauce? He must have better taste than I thought.") Mac busily inventing ways to keep the cold air out, and the cosy atmosphere in. 

Jack finally rolls in around sunset, complaining up a storm.

"Am I ever stiff! Cold bare metal's a hell of a a thing to wake up on, and then miles and miles walkin' through slush- Mac, I hope you're stocked up on movie night refreshments."

"When do I not? Besides the alcoholic kind, anyway."

"Aw."

"Sleeping in your plane again?" Becky asks, a little worried. If Jack was sensible, and saving, the occasional freelance gigs he does for Phoenix would be more than enough to keep him out of financial trouble; but Jack somehow can't ever manage to be sensible. Or stop swapping out planes.

"Sometimes, Beck, it's not whether I can afford rent or not, it's just a question of how long I can stand to be away from my latest winged angel. This new one's a beaut, I tell you, an absolute beaut. I'd take you up and fly loop-de-loops, if only it wouldn't make you airsick."

"Oh. Then I guess that's all right."

"Trust me, it's a perfect deal. Except when you wake up in a frozen field with your plane coated in the white oozy stuff. Shoveling her off was worse than cleaning a walk, trust me- so I paid the fee to get her under cover and hiked on over here. Is it all right if I stick around a couple days? Crash your Christmas?"

"You could ask me," Mac points out. "I'm right here."

"I'd rather supplicate the actual decision-maker," Jack says solemnly. "What about it, Beck?"

She finds herself laughing. "Well, I'm not going to object, but it'll be more crowded than usual. Nikki's here too."

"Oh ho, that so? I look forward to trying out this couch for a change. Must be comfy, the way Mac always hogs it." 

"Hello again," Penny says, wandering down from the upstairs. "Are we talking about what our Christmas plans were going to be? I was going to fly to Italy and pretend to be an awfully fashionable movie star, but this is nice too."

"Oh, the diet freak. Let joy be unconfined," Jack mutters. 

Mac glares at him, sharply. "If you can't keep your lip buttoned, you're going right back out into that snowstorm."

"Yessir, fraulein," Jack says, and whips off a fast salute. "All orders to be obeyed on the double, quick march. Anything else?"

Mac groans and ducks off to join Nikki in the kitchen. Penny doesn't seem to have noticed anything amiss; she starts babbling cheerfully, the way she does when she's got a good head of steam up and prepped for a half-hour stretch.

"I wouldn't let him do that to you," Becky says to Jack in an undertone (there's a sudden sharp anger in her now, made all the more exasperating by the fact that Jack's obviously in the wrong- but there's no doubting that it's there). "Apologies are one thing, but if he made you go, I'd come with you."

"Just what I'd need, a teenager hanging round my neck," Jack mutters. "Y'know, I've just had a great idea. Maybe there's a store around here that sells-"

"Please don't."

"That sells bacon," Jack finishes. "What'd you think I was gonna say, Everclear? Guns? Something else to annoy your uncle with?"

"Guns annoy him?" Penny asks, with interest. "I never knew that before."

The silence following is rich and weird. Becky chokes on her drink; Jack merely boggles. 

"Um...yeah," he manages eventually. "Kind of a...kind of a real basic fact about him, Penny. You probably want to remember that one."

"Okay," Penny says. "Gosh. I wonder what else I don't know about him."

 Which is all the encouragement Jack needs; he's promptly off and away with a dozen ridiculous anecdotes about their favourite troubleshooter. Most of which Becky's familiar with, in less fictionalised format; but Penny listens with what seems to be bottomless interest, slipping in comments here and there, and distracting him until they're down a rabbit-hole of one-liners and half-completed stories. 

When he isn't looking, Becky gives her a thank-you wave. 

Penny looks totally confused, but reciprocates anyway. 

***

Nikki's chili is ready, and they're just arguing over the movie selection, when the doorbell rings again. Mac shrugs and answers it. 

"Pete! Good to see ya, you're just in time for a culinary masterpiece."

"I didn't say that," Nikki protests. 

"It'll be fine," Jack reassures her. "I had a hand in it, remember?"

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"

"This is not good," Pete says, looking very worried. "If I'd known you had this many people over, I'd have requisitioned a bigger helicopter. Your phone's out of commission, by the way."

"Gee," Mac says dryly. "If only you'd given me some kinda device, so you could get in touch with me in an emergency...like maybe a pager..."

Pete ignores him. Steps out in front of the television. 

"Look, everybody, I'm sorry to break this up, but we had information from a very reliable source that this apartment's not safe right now."

Cue outraged babble. Mac waves his hand, and it promptly stops. 

"Why? What's going on?"

"Murdoc," Pete says darkly. "I'm sure all of you know what that implies. Now, the helicopter can carry three, so we can at least get the civilians out of here."

"A helicopter?" Jack asks, evidently outraged. "One of those flouncy, better n' thou contraptions with no staying power? No way!"

"I like helicopters, but I don't think I want to be in one during a blizzard," Penny says thoughtfully. 

"The storm's easing off now-" Pete starts. 

"And I'd rather stay right here, frankly," Becky says. "It gets tiring living like I can't even trust my own home. Unc'll keep me safe."

"That doesn't follow at all," Mac says, looking strained. "Pete's right, this is something I'd better do on my own."

"Not without me, you won't," Nikki says simply. 

She pushes herself off the couch, somehow serene and dignified despite the comedy apron and pillow feathers clinging to her. 

"We agreed about how we'd handle this, MacGyver. I'm not letting you duck out on that just because it's Christmas. I said I'd take him down whatever that requires, and I certainly can't do that by running away."

There is a moment when Becky knows he'll refuse her, isolating himself for everyone's safety; but it passes, and Mac takes her hands, staring deeply at his colleague. 

"If I try to get rid of you now, you'll make even more trouble than Murdoc will, is that it?"

"More or less."

Jack snickers. Becky elbows him. 

"In that case," Pete says, only a little wearily. "With three Phoenix agents and whatever Dalton's talent for self-preservation is-" 

"The phrase you're looking for is street smarts, big guy."

"- I suppose that the two of you are as safe here as anywhere," Pete says to Penny and Becky. "Besides. It doesn't work out too well, giving orders that nobody will follow."

"Does that mean you're staying over for the night?" Nikki asks. "Good thing I made extra chili."

"Go on, then. I'll tell the 'copter pilot to go back to Phoenix."

"Aw, Pete, that's heartless of you. Tell the guy to come in and get warm first," Mac says. "And then maybe we can have a rethink- what was the tipoff about, anyway?"

"Nothing especially specific, unfortunately. It started off like this, we had an anonymous call-in saying to check out a particular phone booth up by Pasadena..."

Jack ducks out and comes back a few minutes later, engaged in a violent quarrel about wind speed.

"That's nonsense! You try those kinds of shenanigans, you'll shear the blades off!"

"I haven't died yet," the 'copter pilot says. "What a lovely establishment. I must thank you for inviting me in."

"So then we sent an agent down the bay in a scuba suit.." Pete says, and nods importantly at the newcomer.

"Hi, Jacques!" Penny squeals. Before frowning. "I hope you're not going to try to kill everybody this time. I liked you a lot better when you weren't doing that."

Nikki drops a ceramic bowl. Hot chili splatters over the rug. 

"...I thought it was one of my better disguises," Murdoc says eventually. 

"It is," MacGyver says, studying him through narrowed eyes. "I'd have taken a while noticing, and I was expecting you."

"Hell," Pete mutters. "How'd I fall for a ruse like that?"

"Better have your vision checked out," Murdoc says smoothly. "I'm a full two inches shorter than your regular pilot, you know. Of course, the heels helped compensate for that." 

Nikki kneels down and starts cleaning up the mess. "Heels you can use in combat? I need to know where you find those."

"Oh, they're quick release. Tap the back just so hard against the floor-" he demonstrates- "and as you can see, it all comes neatly down. Very elegant design. HIT's very thoughtful about in-house goodies like this."

"I wonder if I could get a benefits comparison. It'd come in handy at my next raise evaluation."

Mac chews his lip for a moment, before decanting the last cup of chocolate from the urn. Takes a healthy gulp before handing it to the assassin. 

"I don't believe in Christmas truces," Murdoc informs him. 

"Hang Christmas," Mac says. "This is a snow day we're talking about, that's as close to sacred as I get. You gonna try to take on everybody at once now your cover's blown, or just agree that the timing's off and you'd better try again next year?"

Murdoc contemplates for a moment, then raises the cup. "To your death, MacGyver. I'll make sure it's an entertaining one."

"Damned good exit line," Jack says, once the door closes behind him. "Ow!"

"You deserved that," Becky says, dropping the fraying pillow. "Sheesh. I'm glad everything worked out."

"That was actually quite cheerful by his standards," Mac says, collapsing down besides her on the sofa. She steals a quick cuddle; he's shaking a little, and sticky with sweat. "It could have gone a lot worse."

"I refuse to understand why the lot of you won't let me just shoot him," Jack says. "Boom! Then he's dead."

"The game doesn't work that way," Nikki says. "Besides. I'd have shot him first."

"Why can't I ever get any friends who don't regularly carry firearms, huh Becky?"

"I don't," Penny says proudly. "I don't like them."

"That's true," Mac says, unexpectedly pleased. "You have a point there, Penny."

"I wonder what it was he was actually planning to do," Pete muses. "Once he had you and I and Becky in a helicopter, what happened next? Take us hostage? Kill us?"

"Do either of you know how to fly a helicopter?" Becky asks. "Cos if you don't, I guess we'd have been at his mercy."

"Heights in a blizzard," Mac says, still shivering. "I wouldn't like the odds. That's a bit too much like his idea of irony."

"I'd like to point out," Jack says. "This is a victory for being lazy and refusing to get off your butt in a crisis. I'd just like everybody to remember that, next time my credentials as a competent agent are in question."

"Great," Nikki says. "We'll never hear the last of it, will we?"

 "I need to go cool off," Mac says to Becky. "Just a quick outing, no more than a couple minutes."

"I'll come with."

He considers, and doesn't object. 

So they go out to the elevator, and to Becky's surprise he presses the button for up rather than down, right to the top floor. The exterior door is locked tight, but of course that's no problem for him. 

Out on the roof, the snow is smooth, nearly a foot of it. Becky takes care to follow in her uncle's footsteps out to the edge of the building, where he sighs and leans against the palisade.

"Figured the snow would be untouched up here- beautiful, isn't it? For this one day, it's like everything I love came together just for me. Los Angeles and Minnesota all jumbled up together."

"And we're still alive. Double win in my book." 

He frowns then. "Luck. Pure luck, Becky, that's all it was. If there weren't so many people around, if Penny hadn't noticed the makeup or whatever she did, if everybody hadn't kicked up such a fuss about getting out of danger- you especially, Becky. Crestfallen the way you looked, I felt like evacuating you to Phoenix would be tearing a home from you all over again."

"It wasn't just luck," Becky says. "It was kindness, remember? You looked after us, and we looked after you back."

"I think we've both had too much bad luck to believe in karma."

"Maybe not karma, but- making our own luck, like they say. Improvising, even."

He laughs, warm and affectionate. "Never mind your mother. Now you're channeling Harry."

"I could think of worse people to be." She lets her voice drop to an irritable quaver. "You gonna stand out here and catch your death of cold?"

"Maybe," Mac says, with an impish twinkle in his eye. 

"Well, I'm not," Becky says in her normal voice. "Downstairs there's a fire, and dinner and people to talk to- but mostly the fire. Unc, it's literally freezing up here."

"I'll be down soon," he promises. "Go on, make my excuses for a couple minutes. Just need to sit and get my head clear a little bit, breathe some clean air, and then I'll come down and be the life of the party again."

She feels like this would have gone differently, once; when her younger self would have sobbed herself silly over Murdoc's threats, and her uncle would have been too worried about her own terror to do anything about resolving his. 

And maybe that would make sense; but this is simply where their lives are, now, and they can't live in fear all the time. Or even most of it. 

"I'll hide some of the chili for you. Somewhere Jack won't eat it and say it was an accident."

"Thanks."

She slides off the palisade and heads across the roof, back home. 

Where the warmth is. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eh, so, had too much fun watching this episode of WKRP the other day
> 
> it rewrote into a Becky story without much trouble

"Keep an eye on her, Jack?"

"Moi?" Keeping up a conversation while he's navigating his way out of LAX airspace isn't much fun, but damned if he's ever going to let on that piloting is stressful. "Whatever happens, I'm sure Nikki can handle looking after her."

"I already mentioned it to her," MacGyver says dryly. "But you can't be too careful."

Mac's off for three weeks in northern Canada, for something complicated about magnetic field researches, and has spent the day alternately delighted about the trip and worrying about his niece. "Normally, I wouldn't fuss-"

"Sure you would."

"Point," Mac admits. "Thing is, I think that she's picked up a boyfriend and hasn't mentioned it to me. Which is fair enough. If she doesn't want to tell me she doesn't have to."

"That doesn't sound anything at all like Becky." And they're out of the traffic, into nice smooth cruising space. Jack pops on the autopilot and tucks one end of his new headphones into his ear (a nice little contrivance straight from the Phoenix labs, built for maximum sound quality with minimal damage). "Let's face it, if she so much as bumped into a boy at school you'd probably get a full report the minute she got home. She isn't one to keep things to herself."

"Well, this she has. Boxes of chocolates on the mat, late at night- you know, when she's awake and I'm not. Flowers. The usual stuff."

"Sure they're not being left by somebody more nefarious?"

"That's why I know about it at all," Mac says, sounding bored. "All on the up and up. And the apartment security cameras show a- well, never mind. One of Becky's school friends, that's all."

"Well, if you're going to be so low-key about it, whaddya want me to do?"

"...I dunno," Mac says, huffing out a slightly irritated breath. "But just in case it turns out there is a subject that she's too embarrassed to talk to me about, just be there for her? She needs all the support she can get, and I know I'm not enough."

"You're enough."

"Only cos I have a lot of help. Let's face it," Mac says, just a little sly now. "Ducking out on the kid you're looking after isn't the most responsible thing to do."

"But it's what keeps you and the kid fed. Soldiers do worse every day- look at my dad."

"Thanks so much for the comparison. And I know I could have turned the gig down, if I'd really wanted..."

"And would anybody have done as good a job at it as you're gonna?"

"No."

"Well then," Jack says lightly. "Besides, nobody else from Phoenix would have asked me to fly them up there. Think of your ole' buddy, who's been dying to take his new plane on a cross-country flight."

"Just don't pad the expense account as much this time, okay? Pete was giving me the stink-eye over some of those the other day..."

They laugh, and drift into other subjects.

But he keeps Mac's words in mind.

*******

All of which flashes through Jack's mind very quickly, while he's processing the most ridiculous statement he's heard since Penny Parker's last party. Or maybe even before that.

"So that's why I can't marry you. I'm already engaged."

Becky nestles herself up against him, cuddling as she does. Jack lets her. Wonders frantically how long it'll take Nikki to show up and rescue them.

"I know everything about you," the boy holding the gun says (loosely, not pointed at them, but the point stands). "I know you're not in love."

Who he is, Jack has no idea. Tall, square cut jaw, not a bad match for Mac at twenty except for the tangled ringlets. "It wasn't very long ago," Jack says, slowly and pleasantly and hoping that Becky will have the sense not to contradict. "I mean, let's face it, I sure found it kinda hard to believe."

"I don't believe it at all. He's old enough to be your father!"

"He's sweet," Becky argues. Sounding very firm, but Jack finds himself having to support the teenager's weight; she's terrified, on the verge of fainting, and who wouldn't be after opening an apartment door to find a death sentence on the other side of it? (Besides secret agents, anyway.) "He's sweet, he's kind, he- he's just like me, you know that? An orphan and everything."

"Like in that car crash," the boy says, with unspeakable eagerness. "I know all about that, I even visited the site."

"How come you know so much about Beck, huh?" Jack asks. "You know her from school, or Phoenix, or what?"

"Well, it started with MacGyver," the boy says. "He saved me, and my whole family last year, we couldn't thank him enough. He's my hero."

This last is soft and very reverent, and Jack can't help finding it incredibly stupid, under the circumstances.

"Seems to me that pulling out a gun is just about the last lesson you should have learned, if you know anything about Mac."

The gun wavers a moment, and settles on him. Him and his big mouth.

"I had to bring one along for protection," the boy says. "All the bad guys that this apartment sees-"

Kid's got a point there, maybe.

"-and then she hit me with a chemistry textbook!"

"I thought you were Murdoc or somebody," Becky splutters. "You snuck in through the window, what was I supposed to think?"

"I figured it was something like that," the boy says. "So I didn't take it too personally....anyway, he just happened to mention he had a niece, the sweetest girl in the whole world, and I just wanted to get to know everything about her, you know? Sort of by way of saying thanks. So then I fell in love. I mean, you really are the most wonderful girl," the boy says, rather earnestly.

Note to self, Jack privately vows: slap best friend upon return. The time and place for cooing over favourite nieces does not include Phoenix missions.

"But him, I do figure I'm going to take personally- how can you be happy with a guy like that? Just some fat old coward who MacGyver doesn't even like."

"He does too!"

"Beck, maybe you don't have to shout that loud. I'm right here," Jack murmurs. A slight on him is survivable. Getting shot, not so much.

"Well, I heard him talking all about you," the boy says grumpily. "About how you're a good for nothing hustler who can't even figure out how to change a tire."

It snaps into place, then. "He rescued you, huh? Was this during the Pasadena fire, last year?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Well, that was after a pretty bad case of jetlag, you know-"

"And that was all your fault, wasn't it? He just wants to live a nice quiet life, help people out quietly and magically the way he does, only you keep dragging him across the country on stupid money-making schemes, don't you?"

This....this is not good. A totally understandable interpretation of Mac's life from the outside, and one he can't very well correct without letting this youngster in on classified Phoenix secrets.

He's starting to feel woozy himself now. If it was just him, he'd have tackled this youngster ages ago, taken his chances on reflexes that aren't what they were twenty years ago- but not with Becky here. Definitely not.

(Non-violence or no, Mac'll kill _him_ if he manages to let Becky die.)

"Yeah, my uncle's a real do-gooder," Becky says; and there's a new tone in her voice now. "Always helping people out, always giving our money away- d'you know that I have to make practically all my clothes? Had to move from my family's house to this little apartment? My gosh, I can't even remember the last time Unc bought any food. It's always Jack who takes care of us."

Which is because he happens to enjoy grocery shopping and finds the errand an easy way to pay off free plane repairs; but that's not something Jack figures has to be said just now. The boy's looking hurt. Betrayed, confused.

"But- you love him. You love how kind he is to people, how much he wants to help them. I do too."

"Oh, I put on a good front, sure. I didn't have anywhere else to go. But I do now," Becky says. "Jack's promised to take me away from all this. We'll be rich, he said so."

"If you think that- that blowhard's ever going to make a fortune, you're even stupider than I thought!"

"At least he's trying," Becky retorts. "Which is a lot more than my uncle can say!"

The boy sniffles. Sits down on the couch, sniveling unhappily, and lets the gun slip down. Jack tenses.

"I thought you were just perfect! I thought- I thought you were the sweetest, kindest girl ever, just like your uncle!"

"Geez, I hope I'm a better girl than my uncle is," Becky says; and kisses him. She's pretty terrible at it, Jack can't help noting; even his sizable experience can't make it look remotely ept.

Still, it does the job. The boy watches them in utter misery.

"I guess I'll just go home, then. Becky Grahme, you broke my heart."

"You're not heir to a sizeable fortune or anything, are you?" Becky asks, breaking away from him at last with a calculating air.

"No!"

He glares at her, and stalks out of the apartment.

"Oh my god. Jack, I think I might pass out."

"You know what your uncle would say. Head between the knees, remember to breathe." Jack hastens for the telephone, makes it just before the door opens again.

"Hullo, everyone," Nikki says. "Anything fun happen while I was out?"

"Nikki," Jack says in relief. "Did you see a teenaged boy in the elevator, sobbing his heart out?"

"Sure."

"Go n' arrest him for us, will you? I'll fill you in on the details later."

There's this to be said for Nikki Carpenter; she doesn't need to be told twice.

*********

"How could you have let me stay on in Canada for weeks and not mentioned anything?"

"Because it was over, MacGyver," Nikki says. "He's in juvvie. Everyone's safe. There was no point bringing on one of your protective overreactions and having you fly back for no reason."

"But- she must have been so scared, and traumatized-"

"I think Jack was more scared than I was," Becky says. "He wasn't going to shoot anybody for real."

"I wasn't too sure of that," Jack says.

"He idolised Unc, though. Of course he wasn't going to use it- though I'm glad he's in custody. Serves him right. All in all, though," Becky says, shrugging, "I don't think it was that big a deal. Jack could have taken him- I could have!"

"Well, I'm glad you didn't have to," Mac says, looking not one bit less worried. "But- at what point do I need to just ask for round-the-clock security for you, huh?"

"It's not compatible with your legend, MacGyver," Nikki reminds him. "Engineers who volunteer at charities don't need that sort of protection for their favourite nieces- do you want to draw even more attention to yourself? Unless you'd rather just go for full-blown undercover work, like I keep saying you should. Move cross-country, change your name-"

"Nikki...I hate to say it, but I think I'm getting too old for that kinda thing," Mac murmurs. "Phoenix really has spoiled me- I like being able to pick and choose my assignments, I like having a steady income for Becky. And I guess I've come to appreciate having backup, too. I've spent too much of my life without it already."

"You'll always have that from me," Jack says quietly.

"As long as I'm around," Nikki says; and Jack can suddenly see where the gulf lies, what's holding the duo back from making any commitments, why they can't bring themselves to go any further. "It is my job, after all."

"Much appreciated," Mac says, without irony. Jack resists the urge to throw a pillow at him. At least they've gotten off the subject-

"By the way. What was this whole thing about pretending to be engaged, Becky?"

"Oh, that," Becky says carelessly. "Jack, why don't you explain? I mean, I did all the hard work of thinking it up."

"I'm rather curious about that myself," Nikki says. "Do tell."

Gulp.

This is gonna be interesting...

 


End file.
